Icon

Icon Mast suitability ?

Well I think GRF will know soon enough with his 'Iconish' project.  The 50mm mast on Icon is deck stepped with lowers but I understand the GRF / Rob White concept is to have the mast  (lengthened) and a few cm further back and stepped off the front of the central spine - with a mast gate on the back of the cockpit bulkhead.   This will allow the rig to be bought back sufficiently to have a decent chute hoop in front of the forestay ... as well as adjusting the overall balance and stiffenting things up a bit.   The mast tubes are already relatively stiff and are identical to many used in the Contender class ... so I guessing that 'person dangling' would be fine. 

Icon has not gone that way but the hull and basics were in part determined to be able to use the hull with varied deck mouldings allowing different configurations in time ... so not that much different to the NS14 / MG14 hull commonality.     

Jib cleat unit ?  The Icon CA secretary (Mike Bell) developed a prototype one for his boat and the idea was then taken further by Devoti a few months back .... by then in carbon of course.   They can be retrofitted and I know that 'Icon 15' at least has a production one in the UK  (there may be more) .... we will encourage Devoti to field some photos if they don't pick up on this thread...

Mike L.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'd *never* be without leech control of the jib on a two sail boat.

If I were doing a two hander for myself now I would without doubt have a dangly pole and no self tacking arrangement. At the moment I think its by far the most flexible and tunable arrangement when there are sufficient hands to manipulate it.

But on a singlehander the question is how best to organise the leech control when there are not sufficient hands. On a Canoe the sliding seat makes separate jib sheets much more manageable than on a trapeze boat, so I think the arguments are fairly finely balanced each way, as they would be on a low powered narrow boat. On a trapeze or winged singlehander with a jib a self tacking arrangement and thus the spar on the foot and "kicker" to the mast would be the way to go without doubt.

Hmm, not at all sure about that K1 arrangement. Might be the worst of all worlds! I've just had a thought about what might be a way to do the extended spar kicker arrangement without a line going right up the jib... Must do some sketches!

Edited by JimC - 02 Dec 13 at 12:22pm

I'd tend to gut instinct in line with Jim there... keep it simple and my thoughts behind this would be to dump the pole tbh.... goose winging ought to be a very light wind affair (I used to do it singlehanded in a 12 in light winds, using a loose cut down oppy sprit if I could get forward to put it on, if not, sail without the pole)  But it usually paid to sail higher angles in any sort of breeze one up.  

Edited by yellowwelly - 02 Dec 13 at 11:44am

cheers Mike,

could the icon jib realistically be fitted with self-tacking gear?